One dramatic event followed hard on the heels of another at Scarborough yesterday where 25 wickets crashed and 358 runs were scored on the first day of Yorkshire's championship match against Division Two leaders Worcestershire.

Things looked bleak for Yorkshire when they were bowled out for 130 inside 32 overs after winning the toss but they then hit back hard by dismissing Worcestershire for 91 and at the end of a long day they were 137 for five second time around with an overall lead of 176.

At least five batsmen in an incredible day's cricket were out offering no stroke and although umpires Barrie Leadbeater and 'Pasty' Harris were obliged to report the fall of 15-plus wickets to Lord's they did not feel that the dismissals were due to excessive seam or inconsistent bounce or that the pitch held any gremlins.

Following the umpires' telephone call, ECB pitch liaison officer John Jameson set off from Cardiff for North Marine Road to decide for himself if any official action should be taken. He would probably be told that the pitch was slightly damp at the start as a result of Monday's violent storm but that the crash of wickets was mainly caused by good bowling and poor batting.

The calling in of a pitch inspector brought back memories of Yorkshire's game against Surrey on the ground in 2000 when Yorkshire had eight points docked for preparing a sub-standard pitch.

The procession to and from the pavilion began in the very first over when Matthew Wood missed an inswinger and was lbw to the dangerous Kabir Ali who proceeded to take the first seven wickets to fall and end with this season's best first class figures of eight for 53.

Stephen Fleming slapped 31 before becoming Kabir's fifth victim at 57 but the highest stand of the innings came from the last-wicket pair of Richard Dawson and Steve Kirby who added 37 priceless runs to help Yorkshire recover from 93 for nine.

If Yorkshire were bad, Worcestershire soon proved to be much worse as Chris Silverwood and Kirby ripped into them, Silverwood picking up three of the first four wickets to fall.

But it was Kirby who was able to plug away for longer and bowling unchanged from the pavilion end he celebrated his first match as a capped player by capturing six wickets for 51 runs to give him 44 wickets in his last five-and-a-half championship matches.

His fourth wicket, that of Steve Rhodes, brought Kirby his 50th wicket of the season, the first Yorkshire bowler to achieve the milestone for three years.

Almost unnoticed, Bradford-born off-spinner Gareth Batty entered the ground at 2.50pm, having been released by England, and he replaced Shaftab Khalid in the game. Batty found himself going in to bat at 38 for six and he hung around for almost half an hour before being caught behind off Vic Craven.

Fleming played some positive shots in the second innings but wickets continued to tumble and when Michael Lumb marked the awarding of his county cap last week by bagging a pair Yorkshire were 78 for four.

Batty came on with the day's first spin at 88 for four but Craven and White held firm in the lengthening shadows until they had put on 46 when Craven was surprised by Jeremy Kemp's extra bounce and gave a slip catch to Solanki.